


Restless Reunions and Revelations

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Multi, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-31
Updated: 2006-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon's back and it rocks the stability of the volatile teens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restless Reunions and Revelations

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/312587) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



> I consider them all to be 16 or older, but if teen sex and relationships bother you, you might want to skip.

Kon came back, after they quit looking for him to. He was a bit different, but then they say dying can really change a person. Cassie was the first one he saw, the one he went straight to, scooping her up in his arms and holding her so tight even her super ribs were on the verge of cracking. She was laughing, crying, and smiling as The Kid set her down on her feet, to see the other Titans coming out at her scream of stunned happiness. She's sure things will be just perfect now.

Then Kon saw Tim, and the whole world fell away for the two young men. Kon hesitated, and Tim was trying hard to be the stoic mini-Bat. Cassie just wished he would go ahead ... and then Tim was gone, swept up in Kon's arms at super speed. It took a minute to fully impact; Kon had chosen Tim, stolen him away, to have a private reunion with. Her heart fell to the ground, through it, into the deep pits of her brother's realm. Kon had chosen Tim and she has....

Slender arms, sheathed in blue circled her waist, and soft lips pressed against her shoulder. Cassie can't stop the pain of being rejected by the first boy she ever loved, the first boy she made love to, but she can turn and hold this lover as crushingly close as Kon ever hugged her. They might not have love, but they both understand pain and loss.

`~`~`~`~`

Rose was drunk. She could still hear Cassie's words in her head, though, so she wasn't drunk enough. 

Bad enough Kon had come back and upset Cassie, just as they were trying to work out the ground rules for what ever it was they shared. Even worse, Rose realized, was how Cassie had reacted when Kon had come back from his reunion with Tim. Rose had been the unfortunate one to be there for that scene too. And now…she took a deep swig of her whiskey, trying to blot it out.

`~`~`~`~`

_Six hours before_

Rose continued sharpening her sword as the boy in jeans and a tee shirt joined the two girls in the den. She tried hard not to glare at him when he sat directly beside Cassie, tried to keep her temper in check when the super charm was turned on. And when Cassie simpered at him, she clenched her teeth tight to keep from saying a few cruel, nasty words at both of them.

"Come on, Cassie…I had to go to him first…you know how fragile he is," Kon said softly, brushing his hand over the Wonder Girl's soft hair.

"You could have been a little more understanding that both of us lost a lot when we lost you." Cassie sighed, though, and turned into the hand, kissing it. "And I'm not so sure of it all. You love him; he loves you, and where am I?"

Rose bit her own tongue, until she tasted blood. She knew better, she had known far better than hope that Cassie would still be there for her. After all, little miss white bread's life was bound to get fixed, bound by fate to be perfect in the end. And Rose was just another inconvenient discard on that life's journey. 

"Cassie, look at it this way. We've been friends for how long? And Tim's always been there. Now it's just…with dying and all, I want you both close." He grinned at her. "It can't be so bad sharing, when we all care for each other."

"Yeah, you're right. I mean, I love you, and I love Tim in a different way." That was the final straw. Rose could not sit here and take it as the girl she had been sleeping with, fighting with, fighting for did this to herself. "Where are you going?" Cassie asked, blinking as if she had just remembered Rose was there. It did nothing to assuage her hurt when the blonde stood and intercepted her. "We were going to work out, remember?"

"Then get your boyfriend to do it," Rose hissed. "He's more your league than me anyway." She shoved past Cassie with every ounce of enhanced strength she possessed, taking pleasure in the girl's shocked stumble. 

"Fine, Ravager, be that damn way," the blonde had called back. "Kon, you mind trying a few moves with me?" Just like that, Rose was nothing again, just a footnote in the history of Someone Who Mattered.

`~`~`~`~`

_Present_

Tim saw the girl sitting on the floor outside his door and groaned. He hated this, hated the concept of playing chaperone/nursemaid to Deathstroke's daughter. He could not truly forgive her for Raven's near death. It had taken all his discipline to enforce to Beast Boy, before leaving, that Rose had to be at the Tower, for her own safety. And he had hated doing it, when Gar and Rae were so close, but he could not go against Dick's word. If Dick said Rose was a Titan, she had to be a Titan.

"Rose?" Tim crouched in front of her, wincing as he saw the empty bottle in her lap. "Rose? You have to get up."

She slowly stirred from her drunken state to look at him. "She called me Ravager." The blue eye was suspiciously damp. "Fuck her." 

"How much did you drink?" Tim asked flatly; he could care less if her emotions were at the surface like this. He was expecting Kon any minute now, and it just was not the night to be dealing with insane drunk supervillain offspring. Rose picked up the empty bottle from her lap, waved it once, and then threw it at the far wall to watch it shatter into tiny shards. 

"Robin…" Rose looked away then staggered to her feet. "Tell Nightwing I quit. I'm not fucking doing this anymore. I'd rather go take my chances out there."

Tim felt the white cold fear of failing Dick replace the anticipation of being with Kon, again, and moved swiftly to trap Rose from moving away. He put one arm on either side of the girl, hands connecting with the wall as he made a human cell to contain her.

"Rose, you have to stop. Think; Five minutes away from Titans, and someone is going to know it. They'll hunt you, to hurt your dad, and he'll hunt you to bring you back to his side," Tim reasoned.

She looked into his face, her whiskey heavy breath coming in slow, measured cadence. "Beats the hell out of living as an excuse for a punching bag and convenient fuck." 

Tim flinched, hearing the traces of Rose's temper rising. "I'm sure that if you talked through this," he began, only to cut off in the face of her mocking laughter, a sound that chillingly hearkened back to her father, to Jericho in her father's form.

"She's too busy trying to get back in your boyfriend's pants to talk to me about shit." At the look of pain that crossed his face, Rose dropped her gaze. "Fuck, I'm sorry, Robin…it's not like that…"

"Yes, it is," Tim said harshly. "He told me… told me I wasn't enough, that it has to be both of us." Rose looked back up, bringing her hands up to cup his face.

"You deserve him to yourself, Robin… but I'm just a pale substitute who can take her abuse. I can't help you." She leaned up, kissing him with tenderness on the lips, and he could not truly call it unwanted. She was too sincere, fighting through her rage to try and make amends for inadvertently hurting him. And it was a platonic kiss, the analytical part of his mind told him, almost that of a sister.

"What in the name of all that is holy do you two think you are doing?!" Cassie's voice thundered from down the hall.

"What she said…the hell?!" Kon's voice rolled with confused anger as the other pair sprang apart to face them.

`~`~`~`~`

Tim crossed his arms over his chest as the cape fell back into place and he glared at the two angry metas headed their way. "Does it matter?" 

Rose leaned back a bit, eyeing Cassie from her vantage. "It does...on their terms." Because she was concentrating on the other girl, she saw her shot hit, watched the demi-goddess flinch and then steel herself.

"Couldn't keep your hands off another Bat?" Cassie asked hatefully.

Tim raised an eyebrow at Cassie, visible even under the mask. "You think you still have a claim on her?" He was ignoring Kon for the moment to rein in his desire to snap at Kon the way his brother would've snapped at someone.

Cassie's eyes widened at Tim's insertion in her business. "You just...dammit, Tim, isn't it enough he went to you first? Do you have to try that holier than thou on me about her?"

Any emotion that might have been showing on Tim's face disappeared at that. "Ask him about that, Cassie." Kon might have come to him first, but he'd chosen Cassie over Tim.

Kon winced as Tim's face shut down. "Tim…that's not what I meant!"

Cassie could not help the tight smile she displayed. "We were on our way to talk over our mutual entanglements, when we found you with..."

She got no further before Rose stepped completely away from Tim, hand on the hilt over her shoulder...only one, which meant it was only a warning. "You make your plans, the two of you...and leave Tim to the side, as if he is some prize for you both. He deserves a helluva lot better than that from you! Both of you! But you, Cassandra Sandsmark, should know it most after this past year and a half of hell!"

Tim blinked as Rose pushed forward, hand on one hilt. Her words made him wince slightly, waiting for the blowup that would likely follow, even if the words did need to be said. 

Kon gaped as Ravager stepped forward in Tim's defense, then he gave Tim a hurt look. "That's not what I meant," he protested again, a little weaker. "That isn't what I think!"

Rose's nostrils flared, and she pinned the Boy of Steel with a glare. "You hurt him...you'll learn that TTK of yours is slow compared to me." She then glared one last time at Cassie, who was sputtering in rage. The white-haired girl released her hilt, turned back to Tim, moving close. "I know you can take care of yourself...but I have your back, for Dick," she whispered, so low even the two metas had to strain.

"Rose Wilson, we are not done," Cassie said angrily.

Kon gaped at her, shocked by the threat that had been delivered levelly.

Tim nodded slightly at Rose's statement, even as the comment about Kon hurting him made him sigh internally. That had already been done. "Cassie, if she says you're done, you're done."

"Rose," Cassie growled, and the other girl looked back at her. "Our room..." she said, her nerves betraying where Rose had been sleeping for weeks now. Tim knew, as did all the Titans living there even part-time, about the affair, but Cassie had not ever made mention to the fact she was sleeping with the other girl.

"I don't think there is such a place." Rose coolly ignored the order, and proceeded to walk away from Tim.

Tim was seriously considering following Rose, and leaving Kon and Cassie to stew in their own messes. It would've served them right. As glad as he was to have Kon back among the living, he didn't need this shit.

Kon took a step forward as Rose started walking and Tim tensed up, and then Cassie's words brought him up short. He turned and looked at her, eyes wide and rather hurt. "You were sleeping with her?!"

Cassie rolled her eyes, exasperated at him, but her gaze followed the daughter of their gravest enemy with conflicted emotions. Rose paused, turned back to Tim, and beckoned as the other two faced off on this issue. Tim turned and walked away from Kon, following Rose to wherever she chose to go this time around.

Kon grabbed Cassie's shoulder. "What the hell?" The thought of Cassie willingly sleeping with Deathstroke's daughter made less than no sense.

"Things change, Kon! There was more than enough pain to go around when you died on us!" Cassie growled. 

"So you slept with her?! Why not Tim?!" It would've hurt to see his two chosen lovers together, but it would've been better than this.

"She...I...It's complicated, Kon," Cassie admitted. "I don't love her," she said very quickly, too quickly for it to be the entire truth.

Kon scowled, shaking his head. "She obviously doesn't feel the same. Never thought you were the type to string someone along."

Cassie shook her head. "No, she knew...we never said anything about love...just...we had something to give each other."

Kon snorted. "Look, Cassie, I know I'm an idiot, but if you missed that... I'm gonna start wondering if you got hit in the head or something. I missed you, know you missed me, but you can't hurt someone just because I'm back."

The demi-goddess sighed. "Kon, this is beside the point! Tim just walked out with her...and he was kissing her a few minutes ago."

Kon's fist tightened at the reminder, and he growled softly before asking. "Any idea where they'd be?"

Cassie knew. She flushed when she answered. "The garden." She recalled the nights they had gone out there, in the rain, ostensibly to spar, and always ending with passion. Kon frowned at that blush and what it implied, then pushed his anger back and headed out that way. Cassie kept up with him, her eyes troubled as she was forced to see just what Kon's return was doing to her life that had settled into a normal pattern.

`~`~`~`~`

Rose took her time as they walked, finally leading him out to the garden. "I should go. I know you love that boy in there; it's been obvious this whole time you've been back with us, grieving."

Tim sighed and shook his head. "Your leaving won't change the fact that he chose Cassie."

Rose stopped him. "He didn't. They were in the den with me...discussing just how you three can make it all work together." Her voice was flat, as she took on Deathstroke's calm to hide the insult and pain she felt.

Tim ran a gauntleted hand over his hair, frustrated. "The whole damned thing is stupid. And them discussing how to make three work doesn't change the fact that he said I wasn't enough. And I don't see how Cassie could do what she did. We've all noticed the two of you seem... slightly more content... when you're around each other."

"It's never been about 'content'," Rose said, a flicker of anger in her eye...and hurt, a deep one. "I'm just a convenience for her. Someone she feels justified using and hating all in one."

Tim shook his head. "I've seen her eyes on you when she thought no-one was looking. I'm not as... skilled... in handling people as my brother is, but even I could see that it was more than a matter of convenience."

Rose laughed, her old carefree 'I'm-insane-so-just-ignore-me' laugh. "I'm a door mat in her eyes. Have been since the first time I didn't push back." It was what she understood, strength and might made right, and she had buckled, buckled to her loneliness, to her needs, to her love of Cassie's raging passion.

Tim sighed. "It's not always like that, Rose. At least, I don't think it should be." He now understood why Batman attempted to stay out of relationships... too damned messy. 

"Shouldn't Wonder Boy...that doesn't always add up to how it works," Rose said. "Is Dick settled in somewhere yet? I could go bug him...Daddy's not likely to cross his path for some time."

Tim snorted. "I know. I know." He glanced up at the sky. "I think he was talking about setting up in New York for the time being... he doesn't exactly have the ability to return to his own city."

"Yeah..." Rose's jaw clenched. "You know Daddy wasn't ...I want to believe he wasn't always like that..."

`~`~`~`~`

Kon walked until he found the pair and stopped just out of sight to listen in, wanting to know just what the witch was saying to his Tim.

Tim sighed. "I don't know him well enough to know... but for your sake I hope you're right."

"It could be worse, you know," Rose said, a sly smile coming as she shook off the depression that accompanied thoughts of her father's madness. "I could be the daughter of one of your mentor's rogues instead of one of Dick's."

Cassie listened, hearing the tones Rose used to cheer her up when she would begin brooding. It lashed at her, to hear Rose giving that piece of herself to Tim…and knowing she had probably lost all rights to it.

Tim gulped. "Thank you, NO. And please, don't ever say something like that again. The adults are bad enough; we don't need spares running around."

Kon listened, confused. Why would they be talking about madmen and Rogues, after he'd caught them kissing in the hallway.

Rose laughed softly at Tim's answer, throwing an arm around his shoulder in a 'do not argue' manner. "So what do you tell him now?" she asked softly. "And, all things considered, I can at least tell you Cassie's a good lay, if you jump for this threesome thing."

Cassie blushed bright read as she knew Kon had heard that.

Tim raised an eyebrow at the arm around his shoulder, and then sighed. "I don't know. I just got him back and I don't know what to do." It irked him immensely to have to admit to such a weakness.

Kon swallowed hard at the casual comment, and glanced over at Cassie with a small frown.

"It's cool you know...I wouldn't blame you...cake and eating it too and all that." Rose shifted away again, a mercurial flip of her mood as it went dark again. "You deserve to be happy, Tim…don't let anyone tell you otherwise." 

"Hades, Kon, what the hell do we do?" Cassie asked, as softly as she could. She was feeling the guilt of seeing just what she had denied, what she had spurned in her selfish quest to have things the way they had been.

Tim frowned and looked up at her. "What, you don't deserve to be happy, too? Your father's become an ass, but that doesn't mean you have to be miserable."

Kon winced as he listened to the two of them talk, and he looked at Cassie with a worried expression on his face. "I... I don't know." He answered, speaking softly so as not to draw their attention. "Never thought I'd find myself in a position like this."

Rose shook her head. "Remember, I'm the crazy bitch that tried to kill your friend...don't go feeling sorry for me now." Her chin did quiver just slightly; the blind faith she put in Dick had long since transferred to his kid brother.

"I...think maybe I messed things up," Cassie whispered just as softly. "She's...tried to do right."

Tim might not be the people person his brother was, but he did care for his teammates rather strongly. Ready to let her go if she resisted, he pulled her closer for a slightly stiff hug. "You're also a teammate. And I never said I felt sorry for you. I'm righteously indignant."

Kon snorted very, very softly at Tim's comment, and sighed in Cassie's direction. "Yeah, Cassie. Shit... why can't fixing this kind of crap be as easy as it is on TV?"

Rose flowed into the hug, reminding him of that night so long ago when she had been naked in his bed, so eager or him. She behaved though, hands staying at the small of his back. "I can deal with that...for however long I get to stay."

"Because we live in the real world," Cassie snorted.

Tim did remember, but he also made himself not react beyond just hugging her tighter when she pressed against him. "Good." Rose winked at him, and nodded in the direction of the listening pair, getting a nod from him that he had noted them too. The look in Rose's eye was devilish, but she contented herself with a noisy kiss on his cheek.

"Do me a favor, Tim. Call Dick, and tell him I'm looking to get away for a while. I might not be able to move around much, but I know I'd be safe with him."

"I don't want you to leave at all, Rose, but if you think you need a break, you know we'll protect you." Tim had never had a nemesis as thick under his skin as Slade was under Dick's, but he knew good and well that Dick wanted Rose safe. 

"I just can't keep facing her," Rose admitted, knowing Cassie could hear, but having the supposed confidence of Tim right now. "I never fucking meant to fall for her, the fucking Wonder Bitch." 

Cassie winced as she heard the vehemence…and the truth in those words. Kon rested a heavy hand on her shoulder, shaking his head.

"We can't help who we love, Rose. I'm sure that's a universal truth. Because, point blank, I don't think anyone would love if there were a damn choice." His heart had been nothing but hurt by all the ones he had loved in his short life, something Rose knew just as well from her side of things. She had lost her mother, her foster family, the man she viewed almost as a grandfather, and her father might as well be lost to her, for all his actions to her and others since Joey's possession.

"There's a lot of good to have in love," Cassie said as she stepped into view, unable to hold back from that bitter edge in Tim's voice. She looked at Rose with unflinching eyes. "It teaches us compassion, humility, and it gives us a reason to keep trying even when everything seems impossible."

"Humility?" Rose asked, her one good eye narrowing. "Compassion?"

Kon landed behind Tim, pulling the unyielding junior bat into his arms. "What she said, and one more thing." He refused to let go, using his TTK to pin Tim's hands and feet from forcing the issue. "Love is what makes us say we're sorry, when we've been stupid." He rested his palm along the hard line of Tim's jaw. "Take me back, Tim." Tim tried to find it in him to say no, to hold his dark brooding as a shield, but Rose caught his eye. With everything they knew of each other by now, Tim saw the girl wanted him to accept this, to go with it…and he could find no reason not to go against those instincts, honed by precognitive ability. At his surrender, Kon pulled him in, and flew him away for a more private talk.

Cassie flicked her gaze at the boys a moment, accepting it, seeing it as right, even as she said good bye in her own heart to the dreams of a child, and welcomed the reality of a woman…if she could win back the one she had hurt. She walked steadily forward, watching Rose shift into a defensive posture.

"I'm not some helpless thing needing pity or…" Rose got out before Cassie extended a hand to her.

"No. You're the one that gave me more than anyone else in the past year and a half. You're the one that let me be me, that did not push me to step up or put it all behind. You let my emotions rule, no matter the pain it inflicted on you, and you were there without question whenever I needed you, ever since I came home to Titans Tower. And I never asked why, never thanked you, never did more than take it for granted." Cassie continued to hold her hand out, until Rose finally placed hers in it, and then drew her close for a kiss.

Cassie kept the kiss gentle, trying hard not to let the usual pattern start, the one that had always led to mutual ravishment. She wanted, needed Rose to see what she had learned, that for all her bold words of there not being love between them that she had fallen as hard as Ravager somewhere along the way.

Rose broke the kiss, shaking her head with a smile. "Don't go thinking this makes us a couple, Wonder Brat," she said with a snort, every line of her body at peace, so much like when they would lie together in Cassie's bed.

"Wouldn’t dream of it, Daddy's Girl."

`~`~`~`~`


End file.
